Dick North’s temper seemed to have improved in some measure since his conversation with Lady Haigh, and Georgia smiled inwardly over the change, gathering that a few kind things said by his chief’s wife would go far to soothe the ruffled susceptibilities of even so sensitive an individual, but she was not long in discovering that he had by no means forgiven herself. True, he was willing to talk, but with great persistence and considerable skill he kept the conversation directed to the ordinary trifles which form the staple subjects at most London dinner-tables. He might never have been further from Pall Mall than to Paris in his life, thought Georgia, with increasing irritation, while he was favouring her with his views on the Eton and Harrow match, and the iniquity of the vestries in taking up the principal thoroughfares in the height of the season. To add to her resentment, she saw, or believed she saw, that he was perfectly well aware of her eagerness to hear about his life in India and Khemistan, and that he was rejoicing in her unavailing disgust. Miss Hervey, his left-hand neighbour, claimed his attention at last, and Georgia found an attraction of greater power in the talk of Sir Dugald Haigh, a small, neutral-tinted man, with grey hair, grey eyes, grey moustache, and a greyish-brown skin, who was telling Mrs Egerton of various changes which had taken place in Baghdad, whence he had lately returned, since the days of her residence there. “I was not sorry to wash my hands of the place,” he said. “Very likely I belong to an old, worn-out school, and my ways are too rough and ready for the kid-glove methods of to-day. Our rule was always to ask only for what we meant to have, but never to recede from a demand once made. ‘Hold on like grim death,’ was our motto, and we followed it out. The method had this advantage, that every one knew we meant what we said. It’s a great thing not to be afraid of bringing on war if it’s necessary, but you are too squeamish for that nowadays.” “Why, Sir Dugald,” said Mrs Egerton, laughing, “any one hearing you would think you were a perfect firebrand, and ferociously bloodthirsty, but I remember that when I was at Baghdad there was nothing you dreaded so much as the slightest complication. I believe you would have done anything, short of hauling down the flag, to avert a disturbance.” “Don’t believe her, Miss Keeling,” said Sir Dugald. “Behind my back she will be telling you that I am a regular Jingo.” “And besides,” said Mrs Egerton, “why you should talk as though you were a failure, I don’t know. You are trying to make Miss Keeling think that you have been ordered to Kubbet-ul-Haj as a punishment.” “Not quite,” said Sir Dugald, his eyebrows twitching a little. “No, indeed, when you know that you are looking forward confidently to a K.C.B. or a peerage when you come home.”